Jodie’s Basement Part 2
I was pretty sure I was dying. Jodie had done a lot of damage. It hurt to breathe. I guessed the lung was filling with blood or something else. I coughed weakly and it hurt so badly I cried. I was pretty sure that my shattered ribs was preventing my diaphragm from working correctly. If I couldn’t inhale deeply, pneumonia was SURE to set in. I was feeling like I was impossibly heavy. The pain was a dull controlled chaos as long as I didn’t move, she had drugged me with something different this time, but with what I have no idea. I experimented with moving my good arm and realized that I was strapped to the old hospital gurney I woke up on. It was adjusted so that I was sitting up.
I smelled something horrible. Putrid… Rotting. I gagged. Was it me? OH GOD I thought, panic welling up. There was a crinkle of plastic. She had put a plastic shower curtain under me. I’ve seen this before. Realizing I was on plastic accelerated the panic—because it meant only one thing. I moved my impossibly heavy head over and looked at my left arm. It had turned gray and the fingers had started to turn black. Gangrene had set in? I was done. I silently slid under the waves of panic, like a sinking ship, no longer able to fight it.
Some time later, a minute? An hour? I had no way to gauge it. I tried to look around but my head was too heavy to move so I did the best I could with my eyes. Jodi wasn’t nearby that I could tell, but my field of vision was rather limited. Looking at my arm again I had the odd sensation that it wasn’t MY arm; it was someone else’s. MY arm wouldn’t be turning black, and would respond when I tried to move it. I hoped the same sensation would apply to my knee. I was scared to look. She had it wrapped with something but I could see that it was colored strangely with considerable swelling above and below the joint.
I heard her move and I closed my eyes, hoping she would leave me alone. “I know you are awake. I tell ya; You gotta stop passing out on me. We never really get to finish a discussion like civilized human beings do.”
I wheezed but couldn’t get enough of air to speak. I tried to whisper. “No more… I’m dying.” No sound.
Jodi pulled something out from behind her I couldn’t really see what it was. Oh God please no, not that pipe again. She reached over and pulled my head up by the hair so she could stare into my soul. “You aren’t dead yet. If you don’t tell me how to get in, you are going to die alot slower than you are now.” Then I saw what she had. It was some sort of knife with a milky white blade. Almost translucent. It was some sort of tanto style knife.
“This my friend is what we in the business, call a monoknife. New technology, came out in the last couple years. Revolutionalized edged weapons as we know it. You know why they call it a monoknife?”
I tried to shake my head but it so heavy and she was holding it anyway. “No.” I mouthed. Almost no sound. I started to cry and could only manage a few soft gurgling noises.
“It’s called a monoknife because the damn thing is ceramic, and it’s sharpened to a single molecule on the edge. Can you believe that? I love ‘em, but you see I had to change the way that I used knives. I used to be very fond of stabbing–there was something vaguely phalic and sexual about stabbing someone… it’s so… intimate. But you can’t do that with these, they tend to shatter. Also I found out that you can’t hold one of these to someone’s throat… they tend to pass right through the tissue there.”
She turned the blade, staring at it thoughtfully. “They are designed to slash and cut, very much to the point–if you will–no more fucking around. You either cut the hell out of something or you don’t. Steel blades have the luxury of intimidation. The only complaint I have with this is not being able to control how DEEP I cut.”
I tried to scream, but could only cry and tremble, utterly helpless. Why the hell was she torturing me? I didn’t have what she wanted. Despite all of this, part of me still loved her, part of me was sorry I had hurt her, and part of me wanted to be around for my kid. I had an idea forming, I think I knew how to get her money.
She dropped my head and walked to the left side of the gurney. She placed the back side of the blade against the little finger on my blackened left hand. She applied pressure but I couldn’t feel anything. “Does that hurt?” She whispered.
I did my best imitation of someone shaking a head that weighed a couple tons. I made a crude hand gesture for a pencil. I wanted her to stop and listen, but I had little hope that she was sane any longer.
“You want something to write with? Why? Do you want to tell me about the money? Or are you trying to keep 10 fingers? Honey I think you are down 5 no matter what.” She turned the blade over hovering above the blackened finger.
I rubbed my right forefinger and thumb together—the universal street sign for money. Her response was to demonstrate flesh and bone offered no resistance to the mono blade. The little finger came off clean as if it were made from clay. The stench of rotten flesh intensified and threatened to overwhelm me. I still had the disconnected feeling that this was happening to someone else. My stomach lurched violently and the pain from my ribs hit high voltage. The finger? There was no pain. Almost no blood. The little blood that oozed was black and thick. “Bitch”, I managed.
“Aw honey, you say the sweetest fucking things.” feigning sweetness, “Now what were you saying?”
“The little girl…”, I fought for every single agonizing word, “has both of our DNA.”
“No shit… I thought that she’d have someone else’s DNA after you raped me.”
“The girl may be the key to it all.” barely audible this time. I said it and I knew I was signing the kids death warrant.
That got Jodie’s attention. “WHAT? What did you just say?”
“She’s the key. You can get the money, the clones, all of it with her blood.”
Jodie gave me an evil grin, “All I have to do is make the little brat bleed? Well why didn’t you say so?”
